The biologically richest stretches of ocean are more disrupted than the richest places on land. Continents still have roadless wilderness areas where motorized vehicles have never gone. But on the world's continental shelves it is hard to find places where boats dragging nets haven't etched tracks into sea-floor habitats. In Europe's North Sea and along New England's Georges Bank and Australia's Queensland coast, trawlers may scour the bottom four to eight times every year. And the U.S. National Marine Sanctuaries hardly deserve the name. Commercial and recreational fishing with lines, traps or nets is allowed almost everywhere in these "sanctuaries."

New Zealand and the Philippines are among the countries that have established reserves in which fish are actually left alone. Marine life tends to recover in these areas, then disperse beyond them, providing cheap insurance against overfishing outside the reserves.

Though the oceans' woes can seem overwhelming, solutions are emerging and attitudes are changing. Most people have shed the fantasy that the sea can inexhaustibly provide food, dilute endless pollution and accept unlimited trash. In 1996 the U.S. passed the Sustainable Fisheries Act, which mandates rules against overfishing—a recognition that protecting sea life is good business. Some fish, such as striped bass and redfish, are recovering because of catch limits. Alaskan, Falkland, Australian and New Zealand longline boats are taking care not to kill albatrosses. Turtles are being saved by trapdoors in shrimp nets.

The oceans' future depends most of all on international cooperation. Working through the U.N., the world's nations have banned giant drift nets and drafted a fishing treaty to bring responsibility to the high seas. But it won't go into force until 30 nations ratify it; 25 have done so. Among top fishing nations, Japan is noticeably absent. The country relies heavily on seafood and yet is exceptionally disrespectful toward the ocean. It has disregarded international quotas on catches of southern bluefin tuna and used "scientific research" as a bogus justification for hunting whales in the International Whaling Commission's Antarctic Sanctuary. A 1997 study revealed that of 109 plastic objects found in Midway's albatrosses, 108 had come from Japan. A world leader in so many ways, Japan would greatly improve its moral stature by helping to heal the seas.

A good place to start would be to give albatrosses a future with more food and less plastic trash to swallow. A U.N. marine-pollution treaty makes dumping plastics illegal, but policing at sea is impractical. Nonetheless, ships could be required to carry up-to-date equipment for handling garbage and storing liquid waste that might otherwise be dumped into the water. Routine discharges put more oil into the sea than major spills.

We should expand our concept of zoning from land to sea. Instead of an ocean free-for-all, we should designate some areas for fishing only with traps and hooks and line, and others as wildlife sanctuaries. As we've seen with once rich cod grounds, if we don't declare some areas closed by foresight, they will declare themselves closed by collapse. The map of the land has many colors, while in most minds the sea is still the blank space between continents. Let's start coloring in that blue expanse and map a more sensible future for the sea. Four centuries ago, poet John Donne wrote that no man is an island entire to himself. On Midway an albatross gagging on a toothbrush taught me that no island is an island. The lesson of finiteness is not merely one of limits but also of potential. In the oceans, less is truly more: less trash, less habitat destruction and catching fewer fish now will mean more food later on for both humanity and wildlife. The oceans make our planet habitable, and the wealth of oceans spans nutritional, climatological, biological, aesthetic, spiritual, emotional and ethical realms. Like the albatross, we need the seas more than the seas need us. Will we understand this well enough to reap all the riches that a little restraint, cooperation and compassion could bring?

Safina, founder of the National Audubon SocietyÕs Living Oceans Program, is author of Song for the Blue Ocean